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Sunday, March 11, 2018

Star Wars Community Digest Issue #4

Tommy and Yehuda write:

Welcome to the latest issue of Star Wars Community Digest,
your place to get
summaries about what's going on in the Star Wars collecting community
across all of the forums and Facebook groups. We will present the news
and current events each week, so that you don't miss anything. Please be
aware that
many of these are closed Facebook groups though, which
means you will need to join them in order to read the conversations. But don't worry, it's free and almost instantaneous.

If you would like your community to be a part of this feature, please
let us know. We are always happy to include additional groups/forums in
our summaries, but be aware that not every group can be featured every
week.

In any case, lets get right down to it and get everyone caught up to date on what they may have missed last week...

Bucket Coin Find: Part 3

As you might recall from our coverage of the "Bucket Coin Find" in SW Community Digest Issue #1 and Issue #2, the find consisted of a large number of very rare coins, which showed up recently in damaged condition. Over the last few weeks, collectors have had many questions about the coins, and their authenticity is still debated in the community. The questions continued this week in the Power of the Force Coins group as yet more coins from the find have hit the market, with new allegations that the seller is shill bidding.

The thread covers topics including
further damaging vintage figures, the potential problems of restoring a
vintage toy to give it a better appearance, and the potential for
stripped figures being passed off as pre-production pieces.

Revenge of the Shirt

A lot of people had shirts from Return of the Jedi. Open any photo album from the 80s and you're sure to see someone wearing a piece of Return of the Jedi merchandise. Even today, Return of the Jedi imagery is featured on shirts the world over. But Steven Petsche can do that one better. He recently showed off an awesome piece from his collection in the Star Wars: Return of The Jedi Vintage Collecting Group, a shirt from Revenge of the Jedi!

Which Power of the Force Coins are the Rarest?

Power of the Force coins are one of the hottest areas of collecting at the moment. But with so many different coins and so many variations, which are the rarest? A thread in the Imperial Commissary group seeks to answer that question, and the relative rarity of category five coins is debated.

Strong Enough to Take on the Whole Empire

Here's a neat photo from The Jawa's Outpost Group: it's a shot showing the evolution of the Snowspeeder toy, from vintage to modern. Most of the time, collectors focus on one line or the other, so it's cool to see them all lined up like that.

Strange Uncut Book Covers Turn Up

Every now and then something turns up in the community and no one is 100% sure what it is. That was the case with a recent thread in the Star Wars Displays and Advertising group. Kevin Lentz posted images of some unfolded book dust jackets he acquired, and their origins are a bit of a mystery. Are they proofs of some kind? Are they promotional items sent to book stores? The community isn't sure, exactly. Either way though, they're pretty cool.

Countertop Bootleg Belt Display

Large themed belt buckles were a very popular in the 1970s and early 1980s

Star Wars had a strong representation in the belt fad, with both licensed and bootleg examples being available. Elastic child-sized bootleg Star Wars belts with matching belt buckles were a staple in many boys wardrobes. A dedicated collector uncovers a vintage countertop bootleg belt store display in a thread in the Star Wars Displays and Advertising group, and uses it to showcase his rare belt collection.

How Are We to Know the Good From the Bad?

A Star Wars Community Digest Editorial

Unmarked replicas are a danger to everyone

Avoiding accidentally buying a counterfeit piece is a universal problem
found in most collecting hobbies. Collecting vintage Star Wars pieces
is no exception. Reproduction copies of authentic coveted collectibles
are often made by skilled individuals with a profit motive in mind. As
the toys have exponentially increased in value over the last several
years, there has also been an increase in the production of copies.

As
the value and demand for a collectible increases, so does the
motivation to produce copies. Many collectors refuse to have any
reproduction pieces in their collection while some don’t mind having a
reproduction piece as a collection placeholder for an unattainable
collectible.

Even
when reproduction collectibles are made with the intent to sell the
item with transparency as a reproduction, it often will be sold again at
a later date either purposely or accidentally as an original once it
has gone into circulation. This is particularly problematic when a
counterfeiter does their best to make a perfect copy and defers marking
it as a copy.

Although
most copies (to date) can be detected by experienced collectors,
improvements in technology has made newer fakes less obvious. This is
particularly problematic for the newer collector who has saved up for
one of their first big purchases only to find out that they have been
swindled.

There has
been a general outcry by experienced collectors for all reproductions to
be marked in an obvious indelible fashion with the manufacturer and
date. This is the simplest and most effective way to protect collectors without denying fans of replicas the opportunity to have them on their shelves. As such, we believe that the community needs to pressure the creators of replica items to produce them in a responsible way. Collectors should protect collectors, particularly if doing so requires such minimal effort. If the creator of a replica refuses to take even the smallest of safeguards, we suggest finding someone else to buy from.

A pair of rare
coins are in the process of being reproduced without being marked as
copies and this issue is hotly debated in a recent Power of the Force Coins group thread.

Our Star Wars Community Digest Time Capsule Thread for this Issue: Search Your Feelings, You Know it to be Debatable

On July 10th, 1982 Arpanet user "watmath!bstempleton" signed onto the net.sf-lovers newsgroup and told everyone about the movie he just saw. As it happened, he had seen a double-bill of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, neither of which was available on any kind of home video at the time. As such, the script and scenes still fresh in his mind, he thought himself in a good position to rationally argue whether or not Vader really was Luke's father. His final verdict? Well, read the thread.